Bullet had a few questions to ask, so I thought I'd post here for the rest of ya to learn from.

Bullet100 posted:

Ok I can't stand this...

Your screenshots you took during this beta event astounded me. I always try to make artistic and beautiful screenshots but I can never seem to get them right! I'm interested in how you made yours look so good and how you line up the shots to make them so interesting. I remember you telling me in-game about how you open up the JPG's as RAW, but what exactly do you do to make them pop?

Adjustments are made per-picture, but my process goes pretty straight down the line once you get into RAW, especially with CS6. The raw process in CS5 has a few more sliders, but they ultimately do the same things. The new flow just combines some into being positives/negatives on a single slider, instead of two sliders that both just go positive but contradict each other.

Since you ask about it below, let's open this picture. Here you see it straight from the game-

and here's some 100% size snips

so, what we'll do is open it in RAW format, by going to "File > Open As...", and choosing the RAW format, which is the ridiculously long line of filetypes. Hard to miss. You then find your jpg (only works on jpg, so you'll have to convert to a full quality jpg from other formats if you want this to work), and opening it up.

alrighty, I'm not going to explain what everything does, so I'm just going to sweep through what I did. One thing that I've been using in particular is the Clarity amount, though; it sharpens the image up a bit, but don't blast it all the way up (or any other slider). Side-note, turning it to negatives gives a soft and hazy look.

Your process should be simple- start from the top and work your way down, observing how each slider affects the image and finding a point you like. I prefer to play with black level first to get a deeper contrast to start with, though you can do whatever. White balance shouldn't be an issue at this point, leave it alone.

this picture didn't appear to change much, but there's a bit more contrast, and the shadows are brought out so you can see better detail in the underside of the bridge, without it looking unnatural. Also, the clarity is up, which really boosts the look of the stone and detailed underside of the bridge-

0 clarity (no adjustment)

+44 clarity (my setting)

This image is so beautiful but I'm curious how you made the Depth of Field blur?

This is actually a plugin I have for photoshop, which I got to help enhance pictures taken with less-than-favorable conditions like overbright sunlight where I can't shoot with an open aperture, but I want that creamy soft background anyways. I could spend a few hundred on neutral denisity filters to mount on my lenses and allow me to open up my settings with the actual shots, but the advantages of the software are better for the fact I can enhance things like photos out of cell phones or point-and-clicks, or screenshots.

The software is Alienskin Bokeh 2. Before we open the plugin (there's a 15 day trial if you want to poke at it), you'll need to make a selection mask; This is an area you'd like to remain in-focus nomatter what, like a cut-out in front of the soon-to-be-smoothed background. I simply used the polygonal lasso to make a selection of this area.

(highlighted so you understand which part is 'inside' the selection-

I highlighted more than just the character because it would look really unnatural if for some reason the bridge (as it gets closer) and that monument got more out of focus like the background to the left, since the focus gets blurrier the farther away something is from your focal point.

In the program, I made two falloffs:
-one 'planar' mask, which has a sharp center focus and gets blurrier until you reach the end (solid line and two dotted lines in the below shot)
-one 'half' planar with just one direction of going sharp to blurry, which was to help sharpen up the stone wall at the bottom, though I didn't like how it came out last time.

Here's a shot of the masks, where white is sharp focus and black is the heaviest level of the bokeh effect. Normally in the program it shows you the final blurred result but you've already seen that-

four shots, at 90 degree angles from each other, looking as straight down as I could, though there was obviously a bit of angle in there.

Simply did a photomerge in photoshop (also found in the File > Automate menu)

when you merge images that came in at different angles (and it recognizes the parralax), it'll actually apply perspective changes and lay them together properly, but this means you're going to have some parts of the picture you can't include in the final composition without adding some more picture in between gaps

Do you take hundreds of screenshots to get a few good ones? Kind of like our group shot where we had certain perfect timing moments that only one shot would be perfect

for the group shots, I was definitely snapping away to find the right bits to different pictures. Sometimes it's best to do that than rely on catching the perfect single picture, though it still requires timing and method to catch the right bits. "Spray and Pray" methodology can actually be done right, though usually it's seen as a terrible crutch.

The final edited group shot is made up of four different shots hand-painted together. Yes, I said painted, I actually did brushwork to blend and modify things.

[Sorry for all the crazy questions but these have been bothering me all weekend]

I understand that your a professional photographer. I'm an amateur photographer myself but still have a lot to learn. So I understand the basics of compositions and how lighting alters the environment. I also know that this is a skill that takes experience and time to master, but I plan on taking a lot of pictures (you should see my current gaming screenshot folder). Anyways you don't have to spill your secrets to me or you don't have to answer at all. I'm really just showing my fascination towards your work.

Who else was running on a beta-only key, not pre-order? My girlfriend says she had something crazy like 4,000 gems on her account (with the beta key we got earlier in the thread). I assume they wanted them to try out the gem store since they couldn't buy gems for an account that doesn't exist

Longing to play this, haven't played the beta or anything but it looks great. Been trying to get into MMORPG's, WoW and Rift to be specific. Plenty of good ones upcoming though, City of Steam, Rift 2 and this. Definitely gonna get this.

I don't RP, but when I make a character I actually think about the background and concept of them. I kind of work in a little backstory on why they are their class, and fit that to what they are and how they look.

I know the game doesn't focus on racial bonuses to classes, so every player is just as good as the next so long as they know what they're doing, opening up the personalization aspect much more since you're not restricted to making a specific race character so you're a percentage better at a class if you don't want to

but I always want a nice aspect of believability to the character if I work it out. Like, my asura isn't a physical fighter, they're too small and weak. Clearly I'd prefer magic and tech for them, and lore-wise they obviously fit that degree.

-Humans would be all-around, I can't imagine what they wouldn't do to some degree. Probably first choice to me if I want to go thief or engineer. I've got a thief character I'd like to start early on, beta glitched her out on me though.

Norn would clearly dominate more physical classes like warrior and guardian, though necromancer isn't too far fetched sounding to me

Charr in lore are based around industrialism, though I can't really see them as engineers; they feel too bulky and probably too clumsy with those claws for much other than large industrial things, much less gadgets and such. I'd see them going more into the warrior and ranger classes, avoiding magic. Maybe a thief if I can secure the Katia Managan name

Sylvari would be a major magic class, clearly elementalist, mesmer and ranger fit in at first thought. Thief sound pretty interesting in concept as well, they're sleek in design and- being made of nature- feel like they'd be very stealthy in nature settings.

Of course we're going to have intentional joke combinations, like asura who tank hard as warriors, gigantic black mesmers, sylvari flamethrower engineers, maybe even charr hunters with a cat would seem kind of a joke in itself

Charr in lore are based around industrialism, though I can't really see them as engineers; they feel too bulky and probably too clumsy with those claws for much other than large industrial things, much less gadgets and such. I'd see them going more into the warrior and ranger classes, avoiding magic. Maybe a thief if I can secure the Katia Managan name

UHHHHH...

Reserved it in GW1 so I could have a female charr elementalist that is a chef, so I can make my own alcohol.

I don't RP, but when I make a character I actually think about the background and concept of them. I kind of work in a little backstory on why they are their class, and fit that to what they are and how they look.

I know the game doesn't focus on racial bonuses to classes, so every player is just as good as the next so long as they know what they're doing, opening up the personalization aspect much more since you're not restricted to making a specific race character so you're a percentage better at a class if you don't want to

but I always want a nice aspect of believability to the character if I work it out. Like, my asura isn't a physical fighter, they're too small and weak. Clearly I'd prefer magic and tech for them, and lore-wise they obviously fit that degree.

-Humans would be all-around, I can't imagine what they wouldn't do to some degree. Probably first choice to me if I want to go thief or engineer. I've got a thief character I'd like to start early on, beta glitched her out on me though.

Norn would clearly dominate more physical classes like warrior and guardian, though necromancer isn't too far fetched sounding to me

Charr in lore are based around industrialism, though I can't really see them as engineers; they feel too bulky and probably too clumsy with those claws for much other than large industrial things, much less gadgets and such. I'd see them going more into the warrior and ranger classes, avoiding magic. Maybe a thief if I can secure the Katia Managan name

Sylvari would be a major magic class, clearly elementalist, mesmer and ranger fit in at first thought. Thief sound pretty interesting in concept as well, they're sleek in design and- being made of nature- feel like they'd be very stealthy in nature settings.

Of course we're going to have intentional joke combinations, like asura who tank hard as warriors, gigantic black mesmers, sylvari flamethrower engineers, maybe even charr hunters with a cat would seem kind of a joke in itself

For engineers, I think the only race that doesn't fit is the Sylvari, as their society is mostly based on biological processes; Their homes are grown from plants and their weapons, clothing and armour and so forth are grown instead of forged (at least the sylvari high end stuff). I wouldn't be surprised if they imported firearms, swords and axes from human territory. Charr focus on the seige and warfare side of engineering, humans I would think would look towards delicate items or just general engineering (considering how much ground they have lost, fortification design would be a big industry). The Norn too require engineers to build their holds and forge new weapons technologies to scratch Jornmag's tooth. And the Asura don't really seem to be engineers so much as powerful mages who seek to automate their empire.

For elementalists there isn't really any race that doesn't fit, although I think there would be a lot more elementalists among the Flame Legion compared to the other legions. And I'd imagine there would be a lot more Asuran elementalists than engineers.

Warriors and guardians also don't speak to any one race as it is a dangerous world out there. While the idea of Asuran soldiers in heavy armour sounds funny their size does help in PvP (harder to spot, although that doesn't count for much).

For thiefs I don't think it would fit with the Norn's ideals. Whereas Asurans would find a thief's skillset befitting their intellect and provide them with a method to prove their problem solving abilities. And the Charr's Ash Legion is essentially a very large intelligence agency.

For rangers, the odd man out is the Asuran as they are more about controlling their surroundings than being one with them. On the flip side, I think Sylvari fit the ranger role very well. The ranger meshes well with the Norn's strong individualist nature and Charr scouts would probably all belong to a ranger cadre.

For mesmers I can see a lot of Asura putting their intellect to use in trickery and shenanigans whereas I think the Charr and Norn would prefer a more straight forward brawl. I'm not sure about the Sylvari but I think it would involve poison and hallucinatory spores.

Necromancers I'm not sure about, but I think the Charr would have a higher number of them in an effort to combat the Ascalonian ghosts.

I've left out Humans from the majority of that since they have been typecast into generalists by most games.